Goalie Announcements (Jan 4)

The scoring is picking up even more this week and our poor goalies are taking the brunt of it.  That might not be so much the same tonight, because looking down the list of goalies that are prepping to start tonight, there are a good number that are not claimed by our hockey pool teams, hurting the overall participation numbers again.

After Thursday night, however, the pool has been pulling an average of 14 points out of each game on the schedule this week and that's numbers we'd normally see at the beginning of the year, when our rosters are all fresh-faced and ready to go.  What a great week!

Ten teams have already jumped pass the 20-point mark this week, Eric leading the way still at 25 points, and then there are another couple teams that are on the doorstep of joining those ten.  This is one heck of a Mover & Shaker race!

Unfortunately, with the good, there is the bad, we just can't seem to get weeks where every team can have a boat load of points.  Brian's team is down at the bottom again, 7 points is all he has seen his team collect, while Scott's team is at 9 points and three more teams are at 10 points.  What can their goalies do to help?

Connor Hellebuyck (Jeremy) versus Matt Murray (N/A)
Jeremy's team is the first one up on the list with a start, getting a Connor Hellebuyck start out of the Winnipeg Jets, when they visit the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight.  Jeremy's team is having one of its best weeks in nearly a month, already up to 20 points, already surpassing his weekly totals of the previous two weeks.  His 20 points this week is right on pace to stick in the Mover & Shaker race and tonight's game should be a whopper of a challenge to get 2 more points.

Pekka Rinne (John P.) versus Jimmy Howard (Tony)
Both John and Tony are in the middle of the pack in this week's scoring, 13 and 17 points, respectively, and they get a start each in the Nashville/Detroit game tonight.  The two teams are also tied in the overall standings at 320 points, along with Brian, so this goalie match-up is a big swing game, more so in the overall scope, than just the weekly numbers.

Sergei Bobrovsky (Kristy & Don) versus Curtis McElhinney (Wilton)
A couple of teams in the 20-point range this week will see their goalies go head-to-head in Carolina tonight, as the Blue Jackets and Hurricanes butt heads.  The duo of Kristy & Don and Wilton's teams are cruising this week and looking to inch closer to the weekly lead with a win from their keepers tonight.  The duo are at 20 points, chasing down 3rd place, while Wilton's team is in 11th, 5 points shy of the top 10.

Pheonix Copley (N/A) versus Anton Khudobin (Grant)
Grant's team is holding tight onto 1st place still, despite some injury concerns to some of his skaters, but tonight, he'll have a goalie going for the Dallas Stars, when the Capitals come to town on the second half of their back-to-back.  Braden Holtby ended up with the start last night for the Capitals, so they'll now go with the backup tonight.

Alexandar Georgiev (N/A) versus Philipp Grubauer (Jesse)
The injury to Semyon Varlamov has given the net to Philipp Grubauer and Jesse probably couldn't be happier.  I suppose this was to be expected at some point this season, Varlamov is very injury prone.  Jesse's team has been keeping the pace this week, sitting at 23 points at the start of play today, so a win will get his side up closer to the top, if not at the top, depending on how Eric's skaters do.

Mackenzie Blackwood (N/A) versus Darcy Kuemper (N/A)
A non-hockey pool goalie match-up in the desert tonight.  It is one goalie looking to impress enough to make it into the hockey pool against another that already had a cup of coffee in the pool, but was dropped in Week Nine.  Would a win for either of them make you look twice at them in Week Eighteen?

Marc-Andre Fleury (Troy) versus John Gibson (Kristy & Don)
Both the Golden Knights and the Ducks didn't play last night, nor will they play tomorrow night, so to the number one goalies they should be going.  Neither confirmed this afternoon, so this is a straight-up assumption, but not a bad one, when it comes to these two teams and how they don't deviate very often.  We've seen the duo already in this post, so Troy's team is the focus, where his side is at 15 points this week and still losing ground on the money teams.  Even the best goalie in the pool hasn't been able to save his team from sliding.